Chapter 3 Part 1: The Home of Stars

A polite manner of speech, yet devoid of any real emotion.
A dry tone and expression that contain only the bare minimum courtesy required to survive as a businessman.
The Jeong Seongryong within the play gives off the sense that he wouldn’t even remember the name of reporter Shin Cheolho, showing not even a grain-sized interest in other human beings.

‘There’s an incredible resonance in his voice.’

The voice alone is already decisive.
Beyond sheer volume, emotion is being conveyed through subtle tremors and resonance.
Moreover, his natural movements look exactly like those of an ordinary person going about daily life.

What, then, is good acting?
It can be defined with the obvious phrase: natural acting, realistic acting.
But what is the essential condition for acting that feels natural and real?

Legitimacy must be granted to the role.
For that to happen, the actor must become close to the role itself.
He’s like a thug. She’s like an ajumma. He’s like a patient.
The highest praise an actor can receive is precisely that kind of evaluation—he’s like this, she’s like that.

Acting is an art that expresses human life.
And yet, we all watch it knowing it is fake.
Despite that, making a role feel real—that is the actor’s true ability.

The source of acting comes from the script.
In principle, an actor is a resource meant to express the text that exists within the script.
As the play progressed, Young-ho felt that this actor, Ma Yejun, was instinctively responding to the text, taking responsibility for it, and standing completely apart from outdated acting formulas.

‘Acting without acting!’

What stood before Young-ho’s eyes was not the actor Ma Yejun, but the businessman Jeong Seongryong.
A man who had completely become that character stood there on stage.

This was something difficult to discern unless one was a professional or an insider.
In other words, ordinary viewers would find it hard to grasp just how extraordinary this performance truly was.

Small gestures.
The minute facial muscles and breathing used to shape expressions.
None of it felt like acting.
That was reality itself.

Seeing Soo-mi beside him with her mouth agape, Young-ho felt a chill run down his spine.
Because he wasn’t the only one who had noticed all this.
And at the same time, he felt elated.
A blazing inspiration had come to him—one that could lift him all the way to the brightest paradise of creation.

Every actor analyzes the script and contemplates their role.
They write long backstories for their character, endlessly excavate personal experiences to fill the role with emotion, and train until those emotions can be accessed on stage through memory.
Even so, portraying someone who is not oneself is never as free as one might think.
In the end, the role is not me.

Moving fluidly between emotion, imagination, and instinct is difficult.
Being bound by the technical requirement to fill scenes with emotion, and the excessive passion to act out goals, often hinders free performance.
Overly polished and overly logical acting leads inevitably to mechanical performances devoid of vitality, drifting farther and farther from the emotions embedded in the script.

‘But that actor…’

He seems to be acting on impulse in every moment.
The natural reactions that arise in our everyday lives as we go about living.
Like a musician improvising without touching a single written note, Ma Yejun’s acting resembles a massive score composed of ordinary human reactions woven together.

‘Every moment of his is Jeong Seongryong himself.’
‘That’s why he can freely respond to anything triggered by the lines.’

Just how much time must one spend studying a script to reach that level of acting?

Young-ho had sharpened his nerves to a razor’s edge, spreading his awareness to every corner of the stage.
Up until Kim Seonghyeon—the P.E. teacher and grade head—became the first victim, the characters treated it as a mere accident.
But once they learned that teacher Park Jihwan had frozen to death from excessive blood loss, fear set in as they realized something was terribly wrong.
And once again, Young-ho was astonished by Yejun’s reaction.

‘There’s no empathy for another person’s death.’
‘No anxiety that this might spread to him.’

Of course, such acting could be achieved through meticulous script analysis and precise direction.
But when all the other actors were screaming in terror, it was rare to see one whose pupils didn’t waver even once.
That kind of performance was only possible if the actor’s real emotions were not moving at all.

Humans are creatures of crowd psychology.
When cries of fear echo around them or the atmosphere intensifies, even an actor determined to remain calm is bound to waver.
Yet this actor, Ma Yejun, showed no such wavering.

‘It’s as if he genuinely lacks emotional empathy.’

Acting that isn’t built on lines.
Blank, like a white canvas.
An actor onto whom a director can paint anything at will.

Clear diction and delivery, paired with restrained acting infused with just one or two defining charms—
To a film director like Young-ho, that was an endless source of inspiration.

‘It’s him!’

After the third on-stage murder, when reporter Shin Cheolho was brutally killed, Jeong Seongryong was left alone.
Staring with an emotionless gaze at the vengeful spirit glaring back at him through tears of blood, he spoke.

“I only loved you back then.”
“Love isn’t a crime, is it?”

Was it a parody of some infamous melodrama?
The line sounded familiar.
But in that drama, the actor had shouted the line.
Ma Yejun, however, didn’t even blink despite the terrifying spirit before him.

Watching Yejun face the vengeful ghost, Young-ho’s eyes twitched.

‘There’s an underlying fear.’

Jeong Seongryong wasn’t fearless.
What kind of person could remain calm before a ghost shedding tears of blood?
Jeong Seongryong was acting calm.
And Ma Yejun was acting Jeong Seongryong, who was acting calm.

Hands trembling so subtly they’d be impossible to notice without careful attention.
Hands that had rested calmly throughout the play now slipped into pockets or fidgeted anxiously with the hem of his clothes.

‘He’s expressing inner fear through tiny movements.’

That composed demeanor only made Jeong Seongryong seem even more sinister.
But it wasn’t the evil of a brutal criminal or murderer.
It was a purer kind of evil—so blank it felt malicious.

A man who believes his actions are only natural, to the point of not understanding why they might be evil at all.
That was Jeong Seongryong.

He didn’t scream or flee in terror like the others.
Even his own death ended as the death of a character incapable of empathy.

Throughout the play, the stage plunged repeatedly into darkness.
Each time the vengeful spirit appeared, someone grabbed ankles in the dark theater, hair brushed against necks, and the audience screamed and broke out in cold sweats.
When it was finally over, they exhaled in relief.

Then, suddenly, someone began clapping.
Applause from roughly fifty people.
The already-dead actors poured onto the empty stage to bow.

Female fans crowded forward to take photos and offer flowers or small gifts.
Most of them flocked to Ma Yejun, while the other actors simply watched with cheerful smiles.

Soo-mi, watching Yejun smiling brightly—so different from moments ago—as he posed for photos, spoke softly.

“Coming here was the right call, wasn’t it?”

“…..”

Rubbing the goosebumps on her arm, Soo-mi shivered slightly.

“I was overwhelmed from his very first line.”
“For a moment, I wondered if he was wearing a mic.”

“…..”

Young-ho felt the same.

Soo-mi continued.

“I keep wondering whether I truly caught all those emotions expressed through such small movements.”
“It felt like countless tiny details tangled together into one massive performance.”
“What did you think?”

Young-ho swallowed hard before answering.

“It’s him.”

Soo-mi smiled softly.

“We finally found him.”

Five hundred auditioning actors over three wasted weeks.
Not a single one had delivered the resonance that the actor now greeting fans with a bright smile had conveyed moments ago.
At last, they had found him.

Watching Young-ho fix his gaze on Yejun, Soo-mi said,

“But there’s still one more mountain to climb.”

“…..”

A fee of five hundred thousand won.
A three-day shoot.
Most Daehak-ro theater actors would accept those terms, but not all of them.

Even after finding the perfect actor, casting often falls through due to scheduling conflicts.
Especially for someone of this caliber—there was no doubt other industry people had already approached him.

Rising from his seat, Young-ho said,

“In the end, the only way to know is to talk to him directly.”

***

The audience reaction to today’s performance was good as well.
Having completely shed the persona of Jeong Seongryong while shaking hands and taking photos, Yejun noticed a man and woman watching him from the audience.
They stood out because they did nothing but quietly observe him.

After taking photos with every fan, the stage gradually emptied.
With no more photo requests, the actors began heading to the dressing rooms one by one.
Yejun glanced at the two briefly, then turned to leave.

That was when he heard a woman’s voice.

“Actor Ma Yejun!”

“…..?”

When Yejun turned around, the two finally stood up and approached.
The round-faced woman with glasses spoke first.

“Hello, we’re short film producers.”

“…..!”

Yejun’s eyes widened.

A short film—why react so strongly to something that wasn’t even a commercial production?
Because in nine years, he hadn’t even once experienced working on a short film.

He had once told his agency he wanted to do short films for his career.
But short film experience was valuable profile material, and as the industry shrank, agencies naturally funneled opportunities toward actors with greater potential.
Whenever short film projects came in, they went to the agency’s favored actors first.
Yejun was always pushed down the list.

“You mean me?”

When Soo-mi looked at Young-ho, he extended his hand.

“I’m Jang Young-ho, the director.”

No matter how small the project, a director was still a director.
Even if he was currently unknown and scraping by, these were the people who would someday lead the next generation of cinema.

Yejun shook his hand with both of his and bowed slightly.

“I’m Ma Yejun.”

After the handshake, Young-ho glanced at Soo-mi, who pulled a script from her large bag.

“This is our film’s script.”
“It’s short, but would you be willing to take a look?”

“Of course.”

After accepting the script, Yejun looked at the two of them.

“…..”
“…..”

What was with this awkward silence?

Seeing Yejun’s eyes widen, Soo-mi laughed awkwardly.

“It’s only about a forty-minute film, so the script is short.”
“We were hoping you could look it over right here.”

“Ah.”

So they wanted him to review it immediately and let them know if he was interested.
There was no reason to refuse.
Of course he’d accept—every job added one more line to his profile.

And yet, Yejun couldn’t easily say yes.

‘But what if Pierrot refuses the rehearsal?’

There was one lingering uncertainty.
He still didn’t know everything about Pierrot.